Don’t Try This at Home

Michael Ondaatje’s novels should come with a warning label on them, something to the effect that what you are about to read has been executed by a professional and should not be tried at home. This warning should apply not least to readers, who otherwise might be tempted by the example of Ondaatje’s characters to pursue things like defusing bombs, catching nuns in mid-air and having spectacular sex in semi-public locations. The warning should also be heeded by novelists who aspire to the kinds of feats that Ondaatje accomplishes so deftly and so often. Like his characters, he does hazardous work. His sensuous, poetic descriptions of extraordinary people are constantly at risk of collapsing into romantic cliché. In his new novel, Divisadero, for instance, there is a character named Raphael who is a modern-day troubadour; his mother is a Tarot card-reading Gypsy named Aria. Another writer would not get away with this. It is a mark of Ondaatje’s talent and commitment to...